Inspired Writings

From where do thoughts come to us? Logically, one would think they arise out of the life experiences, reading, and the pondering of the thinker. A letter that a distraught friend finds inspiring, a creative solution to a complex problem, and sage advice at the right time (Proverbs 25:11-13), all constitute the essence of an inspired thought arising within a person. A successful writer will write what s/he knows. If s/he wants to write convincingly about something in an unfamiliar area, s/he must live the subject area until it becomes like a second skin, and then, just perhaps, s/he will have a pregnant thought that can be nurtured and expressed convincingly.

            In my experience, sudden “inspiration” enters my brain, as an unprompted, errant thought that surprises me. It does not enter firing all synapses in my brain, fully formed, like an authoritative dictating voice. It is fragile and malleable, and I must massage it into a “solid” abstract idea, that will, with pondering, perhaps, become a concept forming the basis for writing.

Inspiration begins as a passing brief thought that must be fleshed-out into a formal idea, which I must work at developing into a concept.¹ The ephemeral thought that quickly passes through the mind constitutes the essence of inspiration. Ideas and concepts, on the other hand, must be hammered-out of experience by the hard work of the one who had the errant thought. People that are inspired may produce a written text that others may come to value as inspiring because it speaks to them. In our culture we generally call a written text inspired if it inspires us. The exception to this general practice is the Bible. In our culture it is generally regarded as inspired, when most of it is anything but inspiring. It does, however, contain inspiring passages that have even made their way into secular culture.²

Calling a written text inspired or inspiring is a judgment that others bestow on the significance of the writing. It is a personal judgment. Nothing at the level of paper and ink inevitably makes the written text inspired; the author’s written ideas and concepts may inspire others, but it is the writer that is inspired and not the written text. The written text is a record of the inspiration that previously came to the writer, which others may or may not find inspired or inspiring. One can never know if the author of a written text was actually inspired to write.

In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (OT) and the seven deuterocanonical writings that one finds in the Catholic OT,³ it is always the writer who is described as being inspired by God (Job 32:8, Wis 15:11; LJr 6:4; 1 Mac 4:35; 1 Esdr 9:55). Only once (so far as I can tell) are written texts in the Bible (both Protestant and Catholic) described as inspired. Second Timothy 3:15-16 claims that the “Holy Writings” (iera grammata) are inspired (theopneustos, or literally, “God-breathed”). The term “Holy Writings” is “the name for the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament in Greek.”⁴ Second Timothy, along with First Timothy and Titus, is one of three texts in the New Testament (NT) attributed to the anonymous writer, dubbed the “pastor,” because the content of the three texts is concerned with church matters. That the pastor claims to be Paul, and is not, makes the pastor a pseudonymous author. The earliest evidence for the three “pastoral” writings is a papyrus fragment of Titus, which has been dated from 100 to early 3^rd century common era.⁵ In general, however, the pastoral texts are thought of as 2^nd century.⁶ In the early second century the NT did not even exist. Hence, the writings that later came to be included in the NT had not yet achieved the status of canonical literature in the sense of the Greek translation of the OT. Hence, the author of 2^nd Tim 3:15-16 was referring to the OT Scriptures. The NT had clearly achieved the status of canonical texts (Athanasius calls them “Divine Scripture”) by the 4^th century however, to judge by the Easter letter (39) of Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria in 367,⁷ although he stops short of calling the NT writings “God-breathed,” as the pastor did.

Why would someone think the 27 NT written texts are “inspired”? What is it at the level of the written text that might lead someone to the idea that they are inspired as their authors may have been? Is it because one believes the original writers to have been “God-breathed”? Such a belief says nothing specific about the written texts themselves, and believers in other religions counter with their beliefs in their own special religious literature, which they find inspiring or inspired, such as for example, the Koran (Islam), the Rig Veda (Hinduism), the Avesta (Zoroastrianism), Tao Te Ching (Taoism), Guru Granth Sahib (Sikhism). But believing a thing to be so does not make it so.

Is it because one regards the ideas of the written texts as inspired or inspiring? That, of course, is something everyone must decide for themselves, because if any inspiration happened, it happened to the original author of the text. The written text itself is produced by the flawed abilities of the human author. Whether the original author’s written ideas are to be accorded the quality of inspired or inspiring is a personal decision for every reader. What does your dentist think?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹These three words are generally conceived as synonyms in English.

²Hedrick, “Is the Bible Inspired?” Wry Guy Blog, Thursday, December 5, 2019: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=is+the+bible+inspired

³The seven deuterocanonical books, not a part of the Hebrew Bible or the Protestant OT, were originally in the Christian Bible (the Septuagint) before being removed by the Protestant reformers. They were later declared canonical for the Catholic OT at the fourth session of the Council of Trent 1545-1563: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent

⁴Martin Dibelius, Die Pastoralbriefe (HNT 13; 2^nd ed.; Tϋbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1931), 74.

⁵https://christianpublishinghouse.co/2020/07/26/papyrus-32-p32-p-rylands-5-a-very-early-greek-fragment-copy-of-the-epistle-of-paul-to-titus/

⁶W. G. Kϋmmel, Introduction to the New Testament (H. C. Kee, Trans.; rev. ed.; London: SCM, 1975), 384-87.

⁷https://www.scrollpublishing.com/store/Athanasius.html

Pondering the Inspiration of Scripture*

The Greek word graphē is usually translated by the English words, scripture or writing. By capitalizing the first letter of the word (Scripture) translators intend their readers to understand the word Scripture to be referring to Sacred Writings. According to the lexicons graphē is used exclusively so in the New Testament, regardless of whether, or not, the first letter is capitalized.

            Sacred Scripture is a writing believed to have been inspired by God, as it is stated in 2 Tm 3:16: "Every Scripture (graphē) is inspired by God (theopneustos)." That is to say, the writing is "God breathed," or infused by God. The ancient Hebrews believed that the prophets were inspired by God (Hos 12:10; 1 Kgs 13:20; 1 Kgs 17:1-2; Ex 12:1-2; Ex 15:1-2; 2 Sam 7:4-5; Neh 9:30; Zech 7:12; Ezek 24:20-21), and linked the prophet's inspiration to writings believed to be written by the prophet (Jer 30:1-2; Jer 36:1-2). Thus, the inspiration of the prophet came to be transferred to the "writings" of the prophet, and in this way the writing also became the Word of the Lord; as they believed the spoken word of the prophet was as well. The early Christians continued this practice of extending inspiration from writers to their writings, as 2 Tim 3:16 clearly shows (cf. 2 Pet 1:20-21).

            Truth be told, however, one can never know if a person is inspired by God and likewise one can never know for certain what inspires an author, even if the author specifies the source of inspiration. One only knows for certain what one is told. And the only way of telling if a text is "inspired" is by the judgment of literary critics on the literary excellence of the writing and/or the number of persons who opined it either inspired or inspiring. In both cases, however, that a writing is inspired by God or by the author is a matter of opinion. There are no objective criteria of a writing by which one can identify, or quantify, inspiration of texts. Inspiration is not a physical feature of a piece of literature like language, handwriting, and stated ideas. In the church, however, people believe the New Testament is inspired simply because they have been taught to think that way. It is a learned response and does not represent a critical judgment upon the inscription or inspiration of the texts.

            If one insists that a given text has been inspired, on what basis can one reasonably eliminate the human author as the actual genius behind the inspiration? Personally, I think that Psalm 23, a thoroughly religious piece, is both an inspired text and an inspiring text. It crosses the lines of most religions and offers strong encouragement for those walking through "the valley of the shadow of death." Another thoroughly secular piece in the New Testament that I consider inspired and inspiring is 1 Cor 13:1-13. God is not even mentioned in these sentences. I also consider the poem "The Road not taken" by Robert Frost to be both inspired and inspiring and it has nothing to do with religion or ethics.

I cannot say with any degree of confidence if it was the genius of God or the unknown human author that inspired these three narratives. It could have been both, I suppose; who can say with any degree of confidence? It is possible that "God" provided a degree of inspirational "spark" to motivate the writer's writing, but the psalm, the essay on love, and the poem were obviously crafted through the natural abilities of the human author. To call any of them "Word of God," however, is a bridge too far. Such a description overlooks the role of the human author in their creation.

What do you think?  

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

*I have written earlier on this subject: see Hedrick, Wry Thoughts about Religion, blog: "Revelation and Meaning," Saturday, August 31, 2013: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=revelation+and+meaning

"Is the Bible Inspired?" Thursday, December 5, 2019: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=is+the+bible+inspired

Is the Bible Inspired?

While searching for Baptist churches online in the Kansas City Northland, I ran across this statement of one church’s belief about the Bible:

We believe the Holy Scriptures, consisting of Old and New Testaments only, to be the plenary, verbally inspired word of God, inerrant in the original manuscripts, authoritative, infallible and God-breathed…¹

That is to say: the writings of the early Christians are without error and infallible because they are “inspired” (i.e., God breathed). Is that true do you suppose? The idea that this high status is extended only to the “autographs” (i.e., original texts) of the biblical texts is a tacit recognition that the Bible we use in church on Sunday morning is not inspired and hence is not without error or infallible. What we use in church are not the autographs (i.e., the original author’s copy of a text), but are copies of the autographs. In fact they are reconstructions by Modern scholars. Here is a shocking datum: no two ancient copies of the some 5000 ancient Greek manuscripts surviving from antiquity, virtually all dating from the 3rd century and later, agree alike in all particulars. Most textual critics work with the assumption, however, that the original readings of the autograph of a given biblical text are there somewhere among all the copies of a given text that survived from antiquity, but no one knows exactly what those readings were. Nevertheless text critics imagine they are restoring biblical texts to the “original autographs.” What they achieve, however, are the earliest probable exemplars. The texts of the Bible we use in church are imperfect copies of the original autographs.

Second Timothy 3:16, however, claims that “all scripture is inspired by God.”² Is that true do you suppose? The term “inspired by God” (theopneustos) is only used this once in the New Testament, but there are a few scattered instances of its use in “pagan” literature. The “sacred writings” (2 Tim 3:15) for which this claim is made is probably the Hebrew Old Testament (cf. 2 Tim 2:19; 2 Tim 5:18). The term “all” or “every,” however, suggests to my ear that the author of this text may have had other individual writings in mind not limited to the Hebrew Old Testament. It could not have been the “New Testament,” however, which did not exist as a recognizable collection when Second Timothy was written.

The really odd thing is that not even God can inspire a text, unless s/he uses an eraser and rewrites the text with the divine quill. That is because texts are inanimate things. Of course, God can inspire the authors of texts to write, but they are still hampered by their abilities and life situations, and the written product will reflect the abilities and inabilities of the author. Nevertheless, any text (no matter how poorly written) has an innate potential for inspiring readers, but when inspiration occurs, it is caused by the reader’s response to the text. In other words, it is the reader that is inspired, not the text. I cannot think of any text that everyone would agree has an innate identifiable quality that can be described as “inspiration,” and that includes the Bible. Although I find First Corinthians 13 to be an inspiring text, that does not make the chapter inspired, for others may disagree, and I am unable to explicitly quantify “inspiration.” The Bible also contains texts that are not inspiring. In my view 1Tim 2:8-15 is an example of an uninspiring text because of its clear hatred of women.³

When we talk about “inspired” texts, we are actually describing how we respond to the text rather than to some aspect of the text. Whereas one may claim that the Bible is “God-breathed,” another may make that claim, for example, for the Book of Mormon because it was given to Joseph Smith by an angel—just as Moses received the Torah (Gal 3:19, Acts 7:38, 53; Heb 2:2; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 15.5.3).⁴

What claims does your church make for the Bible?

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

¹http://www.heritagebiblebaptist.com/sof.php

²See Hedrick, “Revelation and Meaning,” Wry Thoughts about Religion, Saturday, August 31. 2013: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=revelation+and+meaning

³Misogyny is the appropriate expression to describe such views as this text contains.

⁴See Hedrick, “How did Moses Come by the Torah,” Wry Thoughts about Religion, Tuesday, September 30, 2014. http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=moses+and+law

What does the Term “Word of God” as applied to the Bible Signify?

The word "Bible" means simply "books."  The term is applied to a Jewish collection of books (ta Biblia) in the ancient Greek translation of Daniel 9:2.  These books included Jeremiah, which was treated as a prophetic book with special hidden meanings.

            In the early first century the content of the Jewish Bible was debated.  All Jews accepted the Torah as word of God.  Pharisees also included Prophets and Writings in their Bible, but Samaritans and Sadducees did not. When Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans, in the postwar reconstruction of Judean religion led by the Pharisees, the Jewish Bible came to include: Law, Prophets, and Writings.  These Books were regarded as divinely inspired.

            Early Christians used the Jewish Bible in Greek translation (i.e., the Septuagint) as their Scripture.  The Septuagint also included certain other texts not in the Jewish Hebrew Bible.  Christians referred to the Greek collection with the additional writings as the sacred Scriptures (2 Tim 3:15-16), which were inspired by God.

            Early Christians associated these books with the "old" covenants that God had made with ancient Israel.  They conceived of themselves, however, as a people with whom God had established a new covenant (Hebrews 8:8-12; quoting Jeremiah 31:31-34).  On the basis of Jeremiah's "prophecy" the old covenants were found to be obsolete, meaning "inadequate" for the new covenant people of God.  Nevertheless they retained the Old Covenant books (i.e., Old Testament), since they considered them inspired, reading them from a Christian perspective.  Eventually a new collection of Scripture emerged for the Christians; it included the Old Testament Books plus a smaller collection of New Covenant books (i.e., New Testament).  The New Testament Books used today were first listed by Athanasius in 367 CE.  The Old Testament collection of the Protestant Bible was brought into accord with the Hebrew Jewish Bible by Martin Luther in his 1534 German translation.  Collecting the non-Hebrew language texts in the Old Testament at the end he designated them "Apocrypha" ("hidden), a designation Jerome had used.

            Hence the Bible is comprised of three parts (Law, Prophets, and Writings), if you are referring to the Jewish Bible.  It is comprised of two parts (Old Testament, the same as the Jewish Bible, and New Testament), if you are referring to the Protestant Bible.  It is comprised of two parts (an expanded Old Testament, which includes the Apocrypha, and New Testament), if you are referring to the Roman Catholic Bible. The Apocrypha was declared to be inspired in all its parts at the Roman Catholic Council of Trent in 1560.  Today Protestants do not include the Apocrypha in their Scriptures, although it was part of the Old Testament in the first edition of the King James Version of 1611.

            The expression "word of God" appears in the New Testament, although it is unclear in many instances what the phrase signifies.  In those instances that are clear "word of God" refers to a number of things: to something preached (Acts 4:31; 11:1; 13:5, 46; 1 Thess 2:13; Heb 13:7; 1 Pet 1:23-25), to the word God spoke in creating the world (2 Pet 3:5-7), to the resurrected Christ (Rev 19:11-18), to God's son Jesus (Heb 1:1-4), to the Torah (Mark 7:13).

            In an essay entitled "In Praise of Books Richard Aungerville, Bishop of Durham (1287-1345) refers to "Scripture inspired by God."  In his introduction to the 1382 English translation of the Bible John Wycliffe referred to the Bible as the "Word of Truth," and in the later version of 1388 as "Holy Writ."  William Tyndale in 1534 refers to his translation of the New Testament as "Scripture" and "word of God."  The Coverdale Bible of 1535 on its title page refers to the Bible as "the word of God."  The introduction to the King James Version of 1611 and 1769 says: the Bible "contains the word of God, nay is the word of God," but also seems to regard the act of "preaching" as the "sacred word." Another statement suggests the idea that the Scripture communicates the word of God, apparently meaning that the Scripture in some way contains the "word of God."

            During the Reformation of the sixteenth century, the reformers (Luther and Calvin) referred to the Bible as the Word of God, but they "did not mean that the book and the revelation were the same."  The authority of the Bible as the Word of God derives from its content.  "There was no acceptance of the Bible simply as 'sacred book.'"  To put it differently: the word of God is contained in the biblical content; the Bible is not a written icon.

            This hasty and incomplete survey through Christian history suggests that that the phrase "word of God" can refer to a number of things: writings containing the word of God, an act of preaching, Jesus, the word God spoke at the act of creation, the resurrected Christ, the Torah.  In the Judeo-Christian tradition the term Holy Scripture or inspired Scripture is applied in one tradition exclusively to the Jewish Bible, in another exclusively to Jewish Bible and New Testament, and in another exclusively to Jewish Bible, Apocrypha, and New Testament.

            It appears that the phrase "Word of God" can be applied to whatever one wants.  If you believe that it (whatever it is) is the word of God, then so it is.  As applied to a collection of books, the phrase "word of God" carries with it a claim that books so designated are special religious literature, having an unspecified divine authority.

 

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

For the Reformation see Dillenberger and Welch, Protestant Christianity (Scribners, 1954), 45-46.

Why is the New Testament a Postscript in the Christian Bible?

My beginning question is: why are the Christian Holy Writings attached footnote-like to the end of the Jewish Bible? I suppose one could reasonably argue that the two collections are gathered into the Bible in the historical sequence of their dates of authorship. That is a reasonable thought, for the dates of the Hebrew Bible texts predate those of the New Testament (NT). But why doesn’t the same rationale apply for the order of the books within each collection? For example, the NT texts are not printed in historical order. If that were so, First Thessalonians would be the first text in the NT, followed by the rest of the undisputed Pauline letters, and the next few would be in this order: Mark, Matthew, Luke, Hebrews,¹ John…and second Peter would be the last text in the NT.

A more basic question now occurs to me: why do Christians use Jewish Holy Scriptures as Word of God and put the Jewish Scriptures first in the Bible? The answer seems to be they were “grandfathered” in, as they were the first canon of Christian Holy Writings. Here is the reason: The earliest followers of Jesus were Israelites, people of the Covenant God (Gen 12:1-3; Gen 17:1-14), whose holy writings were Israelite religious texts.² When the Jesus movement later moved out into the Gentile world, capturing the imagination of Greeks and Romans, these later Gentile followers of Jesus continued to use the Bible of the Israelites (in its Greek translation), because the Israelites and these later followers of Jesus believed it to be “God breathed or inspired” (2 Tim 2:15-16).³

Those who wrote the NT searched their religious texts and found therein “prophecies” that supported their belief that Jesus was the Anointed One, who would come (Micah 5:2, for example), and applied the prophecies to Jesus. These prophecies, and the fact that they believed the Israelite writings to be Word of God, locked-in the Israelite writings as Holy Scriptures for Orthodox Christianity and secured their first-place position in the Christian Bible.

One notable exception to this “mixed” collection of Israelite and Christian texts was the biblical canon of Marcion that appeared around the middle of the second century. Nothing is preserved of his writings except refutations written by his Orthodox opponents. Marcion rejected The Israelite writings and published an abbreviated NT containing a shortened gospel (Luke) and ten letters of Paul (minus the Pastoral Letters and Hebrews). Marcion rejected the Israelite writings and their God, whom he regarded as a God of Justice (“an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”). The God of Jesus, on the other hand, was the God of Mercy. Marcion’s NT was the first attempt to form a distinctive collection of “Christian” writings.

The biblical canon of the Christian communities of the first 400 years in the evolution of Christianity retained the old covenant books (which they came to know as the Old Testament [OT]) and added to them the new covenant/testament books (now known as the NT).⁴ Both collections are named for covenants God is believed to have made with humankind. The covenants are briefly alluded-to in Heb 8:6-12, where the author of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah (31:31-34; Heb 8:8-12), who anticipated a “new covenant” with God. The author of Hebrews adds the following statement to the end of Jeremiah’s quotation:

In speaking of a new covenant, he [Jeremiah] treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away (Heb 8:13).

This “prediction” (toward the end of the first century), making the old covenant obsolete or useless, never happened. Christians are still using Israelite writings, and these old “obsolete” writings continue to hold first position in the Christian canon. The connection with the old covenant, although “obsolete,” will likely never “disappear.” For example, when the two different collections are discussed in dictionaries of the Bible under the entry “Canon,” the editors reverse their usual alphabetical listing of entries by listing Old Testament before New Testament. Their alphabetical order would have been NT before OT.

            The tradition of individual churches decided the order of the contents in papyrus NT manuscripts, which was largely determined on the basis of interest and what could be gotten into a papyrus codex (i.e., book). The surviving papyrus fragments of NT texts do not include OT books. In the papyrus manuscripts of the second through fourth centuries, which are mostly fragmentary, there are few differences with the order of today’s NT, which is also traditional.

            The large parchment uncial Bible manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus), surviving from the fourth century CE, however, contain both OT and NT with NT texts tagged on at the end of the OT texts. Why is that do you suppose? Two reasons occur to me: The OT was considered Word of God long before Christians began writing what eventually became NT texts, and it took around 200 years, or so, for these “postscripts” to achieve Word of God status. Hence, the OT/NT order is simply traditional.

            Isn’t it time that some enterprising ecclesiastical scholar reconsidered that arrangement and recommended putting the NT books first? It just seems rather odd to begin the Christian Bible with the Jewish Scriptures!

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Kummel, Introduction to the New Testament, 246. John was written in the last decade of the first century (90-99). Hebrews is earlier “probably written between 80-90” (p. 403).

²There was not at the time of the public career of Jesus (around 30 CE) a collection of religious texts that all members of the Israelite religious community agreed upon. The Hebrew Bible, as we know it today, is thought to have been formed by the surviving group, the Pharisees, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans.

³The comment in Second Timothy does not refer to the Christian Bible but rather it refers to what are today the Jewish Holy Scriptures.

⁴Covenant in Greek is diatheke; in Latin it is testamentum. The words mean the same thing.

⁵See note one above. The critical date for the writing of Hebrews is earlier than the writing of John.

Revelation and Meaning

I was taught in my youth that the Bible is "the inspired word of God," yet no one ever explained to me how that came to be.  The early followers of Jesus regarded their Holy Scriptures, the Jewish Bible, to be inspired—an idea that they inherited from their roots in Judaism.  These "sacred writings" they regarded as "full of the breath of God," i.e., they were "inspired" (2 Timothy 3:15-16).  In a similar way, I suppose, to God's fashioning Adam from the dust and "breathing on his face a breath of life" so that Adam became a living being (Genesis 2:7 Septuagint translation). By the 4^th century it is clear that Christian churches had extended this character of "holy inspiration" to the new covenant books as well.
 

            Inspiration is not a physical feature of a piece of literature that can be investigated—like its language, handwriting, historical context and character, human author, manuscript tradition, etc.  So how is one able to validate the truth of the assertion that "divinity" lies somehow or in some way in its words?  Divine inspiration is an extraordinarily high value to place on any product of human effort, unless, of course, it was written by God, as the Ten Commandments were described (Deuteronomy 10:1-2).  Nevertheless, we do regard the work of some authors as "inspired," usually suggesting by that appellation that their writings contribute to our better nature and motivate us for the good.  The validation of its inspiration lies in the effect that it has on us, and in its longevity as an exceptional text.  We really don't say of a writer who writes exceptional literature (like for example, a Shakespeare or a Wallace Stevens) that the hand of God is on him, or that God's breath inspires him.  His or her literary greatness we know to be derived from the powers of human imagination, creativity, and careful observation of the world.  By this standard there is much in the Bible that could be regarded as "inspired," the twenty-third psalm for example, or 1 Corinthians 13.  On the other hand, there is much in the Bible that is depressing, such as 1 Samuel 15 or 1 Timothy 2:8-15.  Only a blind true believer would affirm the "greatness" of these latter texts.   The truth is that declaring any text "inspired" is merely an opinion—even if it is a consensus view.
 

            Readers of biblical texts, somewhat carelessly in my opinion, like to describe the "meaning" of a given text, as though their interpretation of the text takes precedence over other readings of that text—other readings are wrong, in other words.  Truth be told, however, there are always several meanings that can be and are given to various texts—frequently there are as many meanings as there are readers.  "Meaning," like revelation is neither a physical feature of a text, nor is it some particular abstract value concealed in some way within a text, so that readers must search it out.  The "meaning" of a text is a reader's response to a text.  As such it is an abstraction evoked in the mind of the reader in the intersection between what the text says and what the reader brings to the text.  Texts say things and readers, if gracious, confer meaning upon them.
 

            Texts are derived out of an author's world; the author has compressed into the text his or her experience, imagination, and creativity.  Generally, however, texts carry along unintended baggage of which even the author is unaware, and for this reason sometimes authors can learn much about himself/herself and his/her craft from a perceptive reader's review.  Readers, on the other hand, live within a world of their own making; hence their world is different from the world of the text.  Readers approach texts from the perspective of their own world and experience, and bring along with them baggage of which they are unaware.  Hence the "meaning" that a particular reader creates in this nexus between the text and the reader belongs to that particular reader.  No reading of a text can ever exhaust the potential of a text to assist new readers in the creation of new meanings.

Here is an example using a parable-like story I created for illustrating some of these ideas for my students at Missouri State University.  What do you make of it?
 

A certain man received a letter from the IRS.  He took it to his accountant to review in order to reply to the IRS.  The accountant, however, was arrested three days later for embezzling funds from his employers, and the man was left to solve the problem for himself.  Because he was late in replying to the IRS, he had to pay a large sum in interest and penalties.  The lesson of this parable will be on the next exam.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Personal Religion: should one just "take it all on Faith"?

I am usually given a non-answer when I ask a question that rubs-up uncomfortably against someone’s religious beliefs. For example, I may say “how can the Bible be the Word of God when it contains errors?” God is perfect, right? Then comes back the perturbed answer, “I just take it all on faith,” as though that answered the question.

Here is one of those questions: Was Mark (or God?) in error when he wrote that Abiathar was priest on the occasion that David entered the Temple and ate the bread from the altar (Mark 2:24-26)? Actually, Ahimelech (2^nd Sam 8:17) was priest at the time that David ate the holy bread from the altar (1 Sam 21:1-6; cf. 2^nd Sam 15:35).¹ The discrepancy is not really a problem, however, unless you have the mistaken idea that the Bible sprang immediately from the mind of God, and was wholly and perfectly received through inspiration into the minds of its writers (something like osmosis). Bringing the Bible into print in the language of readers is a much sweatier, human process.²

            Taking matters on faith is not something that people do in virtually any other area of life. For example, in buying a house or a car, people count-up the cost, carefully read the contract, have the house checked that all is in stated condition and in working order, and have the car checked by a mechanic, if it is a used car. The rule in life for virtually all is “trust but verify.” People trust but verify because they believe the old adage caveat emptor (“buyer beware”). Particularly in everyday activities people are led by that adage. They diligently make shopping lists, and follow them, so that they will not give-in to urges and purchase things they do not need, cannot afford, or pay-for. They shop the sales offers and compare the costs of the same item in several different stores in order to pay less for an item. People as a general rule “take with a grain, or two, of salt” political promises made during an election year, and they check the politician’s background, reputation, and public record before casting their vote.

            So, why would anyone take personal religion on faith, without critically examining the beliefs? Surely, one’s religion is as important as buying a house? What happened to the old adage caveat emptor where religion is concerned? Why should religious faith take less critical thought than hanging pictures on a wall?

            Socrates, according to his student Plato, spent his life examining his own life and the lives of others (he was something of a gadfly on the citizens of Athens). Socrates once said (just before he was condemned to death on the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth of the city by means of his persistent questions) that “the unexamined life is not worth living.”³ If one is going to shape one’s life by religious beliefs, those beliefs should be critically examined and probed. How, for example, can anyone claim that the Bible is the Word of God, when text critics decide its content, and translators bring the Bible into your language in their words? Questions about one’s personal religious faith deserve a more thoughtful answer than—I just take it all on faith.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Matt 12:4 and Luke 6:4 eliminate the name of the priest; one possible reason for their omission of the priest’s name is that they recognized Mark’s error.

²Hedrick, “Inspired Writings”: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=inspired+writings

Hedrick, “The Bible’s Story: A Brief Summary”: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2023/10/the-bibles-story-brief-summary.html

³Plato, The Apology, 38a.

The Bible's Story: A Brief Summary

My title is a double entendre that you might catch if you think about it for a bit. First there is the story of the Bible. That is to say, the story the Bible tells from Genesis through Revelation. The other possibility is the story about the Bible. That is to say, how the Bible came into being.

          The Bible’s story begins with the first inscription of each of its writings, the Old Testament (OT) first, and finally the inscription of each New Testament (NT) text. At the time of inscription each writing of the Old and NT existed alone in the ancient world as a part of the literary stream of Western civilization. They were not part of a selective group of writings. Only later did people, who valued their messages, gather them into groups with other writings. They were initially understood individually apart from other writings. The OT contains the writings of the ancient Israelites. It is “old” to Christians but today it is the holy Scripture of modern Judaism.

          I must now leave the story of Israel’s ancient collection of sacred scripture for another day, and will turn to the Bible’s “postscript”: The NT. It is a small collection of twenty-seven initially isolated writings, which date from the fifties of the first century AD into the early second century—or from the Pauline letters to the inscription of second Peter, the latest NT writing. The NT is the Christian part of the Bible. The Jewish Scriptures being treated in the NT as a resource book of prophecies and religious ideas by the Christ followers of the fourth century and later.

Paul’s undisputed letters (1 Thessalonians, Romans, 1, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, and Philemon) are the earliest writings of the collection and date from the 50s and 60s of the first century, some 15-30 years from the crucifixion of Jesus. They are “undisputed” because virtually everyone thinks a particular man by the name of Paul composed them. The other writings bearing his name or the supra script title “according to Paul” in some translations (2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1, 2 Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews) are not regarded in critical scholarship as being composed by Paul (critical scholarship makes decisions on the basis of historical evidence rather than church tradition). Hence, their authorship is “disputed,” which means: critical scholars regard them as anonymous or pseudonymous writings. These texts were not written by Paul but by an unnamed and unknown disciple of Paul.

The General or Catholic Epistles (James, 1, 2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude) was the latest group of writings to be gathered together and used in the early ecclesiastical communities, although 1 Peter and 1 John were popular in the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries. We first hear of a group of seven “Catholic Epistles” from Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (4^th century).

Although the book of Acts initially was part of a unitary work of two volumes with the Gospel of Luke, they were early separated and each had its own subsequent literary history. In the 2^nd century Acts gained in popularity in early orthodoxy helping to document the concept of apostolic tradition. The book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) was well accepted in the Western church and widely cited as scripture in the 2^nd century, but Eastern Christians tended to reject Revelation. The full recognition of Revelation did not come about until the late 4^th century.

There are two ways that authorship is determined: following church tradition or by offering a historical rationale for or against authorship. Except for Paul’s undisputed letters, the authors of the rest of the NT texts are anonymous or pseudonymous, meaning their authors are unknown. In antiquity texts were titled by their first lines, not unlike some modern poetry. Their supra script titles were added by the later church.

Who gave the New Testament its present arrangement of grouping texts by literary type (gospels, acts, epistles, and apocalypse) is likewise unknown, but it would have been persons concerned with the religious life of the early Christ followers, who found the texts helpful for the religious life of the community. For that reason, other texts, not in your Bible were used in worship in many churches, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Apocalypse of Peter, 1 Clement, Barnabas, and others.

Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria, Egypt in his Easter Letter #39 in 367 gives the earliest complete listing of the NT texts used in Christian worship and education today.

          If we stand in the middle fourth century and look backwards in time to see the state of these NT writings, we are immediately faced with the following situation. There are over 5000 manuscripts of the Greek NT and no two of them agree alike in all particulars. Further, virtually all early manuscripts date from the third century and later are fragmentary, virtually scraps of texts. Not until the fourth century do we find whole manuscripts that survived, collected into a single volume, although not all of our NT is included in the collections, and certain other texts not in our NT are included.

          The latter half of the 18^th century saw the beginnings of a scientific approach to studying the differences between the surviving Greek manuscripts. Ancient scribes who copied the manuscripts would make mistakes in copying and add their own thoughts in the margins. Later scribes would copy the marginalia into the body of the writing. None of the manuscripts that survived is an original author’s copy. To accommodate all this diversity in the texts, Scholars that are referred to as text critics developed the science of textual criticism. The goal of the text critic is to determine the wording of the original author’s copy by comparing the Greek manuscripts and the ancient versions in other ancient languages. It is an ongoing process requiring the seasoned judgement of the text critic, and as each new ancient manuscript is discovered it must be analyzed and compared to the present readings for an improvement of the text. A critical version of the Greek New Testament in koine Greek (the Greek vernacular of the ancient language) is published with an apparatus of approximately half a page listing all the significant variations to the text-half at the top half of the page. Translators are currently working from the 28^th edition of this publication giving the current judgment of text critics as to what the original author’s copy of the NT texts read.

          Non-Greek readers of the New Testament will only encounter these different readings by comparing different translations of the NT, because each translator decides for himself or herself the Greek wording to be translated into English.*

          In the first and second centuries there is evidence of some 34 early Christian Gospels. From this wealth of possibility, the church by the 3^rd century selected a fourfold gospel collection. Given here in their order of dating: Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John were valued as deposits of an oral tradition that remained viable into the second century and competed with the written gospels. No Christian artifacts from the first century exist.

Matthew and Luke are thought, with good reason, to have used a common sayings source (called: Q[uelle]) that no longer exists except in the agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark. Their common use of the sayings source accounts for the verbatim or near verbatim passages shared in Matthew and Luke. And the Gospel of John is thought to have used a lost source called “The Signs Source,” which also no longer exists.

This information is something to consider when you describe the New Testament to others. My take on this information is this: If one describes the “Bible” as “the Word of God,” honesty requires that one also recognize and include the role of human beings in its production as well in the description. My recommendation that does this is: The Bible may be inspired by God but it is clearly designed and produced by human minds and hands.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

*For examples of Bible translations differing in the Greek text that each translation uses see Hedrick, “Variations in the Bible,” Wry Guy Blog, May 23, 2023: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=variations+in+the+Bible

Sources Consulted:

Athanasius, Easter Letter, #39: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806039.htm

Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History (trans. Kirsopp Lake; 2 vols. LCL: Harvard).

Harry Y. Gamble, “Canon/New Testament,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (Doubleday, 1992), Vol. 1. 852-861.

Charles W. Hedrick, “The Four/34 Gospels” Bible Review 17.3 (June 2002),20-31, 46.

Hedrick, When History and Faith Collide: Studying Jesus (1999; reprint Wipf &Stock 2013).

Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament. Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (3^rd ed.; Oxford, 1992).

Graydon F. Snyder, ANTE PACEM. Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine (Mercer, 1985).

"A Power came-out from Him": Healing and Exorcisms in Luke

Last Sunday morning as the minister was reading the text I was following along in the Greek and was immediately struck by a statement in Luke 6:19, which only appears in Luke.

The whole crowd sought to touch him because power came-out from him and healed all.

What struck me was that Jesus was not portrayed as the source of the healing of the crowd, rather “a power (dunamis) that came-out from (para) him” brought-about the healing. Jesus was the source for the power but the power itself was the source of the healing. The same phrase appears in Luke 8:46, “a power had come-out from (apo) him,” and that is also the case in Mark’s parallel passage (Mark 5:30), “A power (dunamis) had come-out (ek) from him.” In this latter passage the woman had touched his garment, which triggered the emanation of power from him. Jesus did not know who had touched him and was only aware that power had suddenly emanated from him.¹ It seems that the power operated independently of the will of Jesus (Mark 5:30-32).

            It appears that Luke conceived the power in Jesus as the power of God: “And there was a power of the Lord [present] for him to heal” (5:17). Again, it was not his power but the power of the Lord. This sentence is lacking in the parallel passages Mark 2:2 and Matt 9:1. In Luke’s source, Mark (1:25) reads “With authority he commands the unclean spirits,” whereas Luke (4:36) reads “With authority and power he commands the unclean spirits.” One might almost say: Jesus’ authority and God’s power. When Jesus sent out his disciples on a mission, Matthew (10:1) and Mark (6:7) read that Jesus gave them authority over unclean spirits. Luke (9:1), on the other hand, reads: Jesus “gave them authority and power over the unclean spirts.” In his second volume (the book of Acts) of his two-volume work (Luke-Acts) Luke makes a point of emphasizing the role of the power of God active in the community of Jesus followers (1:8; 10:38; compare Luke 24:49).

            In other healing or exorcism stories in Luke, it is not a power emanating independently of Jesus without his intentionally directing it that heals. Jesus heals by a laying on of his hands (4:40; 13:12-13), by a touch (5:13) by words or a word (5:24-25; 6:10; 7:14-15; 8:54; 9:42). In some cases, there is no description as to how he healed (14:4; 17:14). Once, the healing is at a distance but no description of how the healing occurred is given (7:9-10).

            Luke appears to conceive of this power of the Lord present in Jesus but not totally controlled by Jesus. It acts in a similar way to demons, and unclean or evil spirits, when they are exorcised. Luke describes the emergence of the power of the Lord from Jesus with the same expression that he uses in describing the exorcism of a demon or spirit: “it came/went-out from him” (4:35-36, 41; 8:33; 11:14; 11:24). Luke 9:42 does not contain the phrase: “it came/went-out from him,” but such is suggested by 9:40.

These descriptions of the activities of Jesus are simply another reminder² to the reader that in Luke’s Gospel we are not reading a historical account of Jesus’ career as it actually happened but rather we read what Luke thought had happened from the disparate bits of oral tradition s/he gathered from oral reports, or that s/he had read in the written reports of others (Luke 1:1-4).³ And that brings me to the rubric “Word of God” used to describe the Bible. At its worst, the expression is a learned religious confession elevating the Bible to an iconic status in the religious community. At its best, it is a metaphor converting the human wisdom of its authors and texts into a divine guide for faith and practice. Nevertheless, calling the Bible the “Word of God” dismisses the human role in the production of the Bible.⁴

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹See W. L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark (NICNT; Eerdmans, 1974), 192-93.

²See Charles Hedrick Blog, Wry Thoughts about Religion: “The Challenge of the Proverb”: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2024/02/the-challenge-of-proverb.html

And “Euphemisms in the Bible”: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2024/02/euphemisms-in-bible.html

³Modern scholars have identified three of those written sources as the Gospel of Mark, the hypothetical source Q, and Luke’s special source, dubbed “L” (written or oral is unknown”). See Vincent Taylor about sources in Luke, “Luke, Gospel of” in G. A. Buttrick, et al., The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (4 vols.; Abingdon, 1962), vol. 3. 184-85.

⁴See Charles Hedrick Blog, Wry Thoughts about Religion: “The Bible’s Story: A Brief Summary”; for the part of human beings in making the Bible a book, see: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2023/10/the-bibles-story-brief-summary.html

And “Inspired Writings”: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2023/11/inspired-writings.html

What inherently accords the Bible the Sacred Status of Word of God?

If I was correct that the phrase "Word of God" is heightened language to express the opinion of an individual or a community about a particular collection of books, then it follows that the sacredness of the books does not derive from their essential nature, but derives from what people think about the books. In other words: like beauty the Bible's character as "Word of God" lies in the eye of the beholder!  Let's take the one poetic term that seems to undergird and support the other figurative terms.  The claim that the Bible (whichever version) is inspired by God seems to be the principal claim and other descriptions are derivative from it.

            Divine inspiration of individuals was a common idea in Graeco-Roman antiquity; the inspired ecstatic utterances of certain figures were commonly treated as oracles (i.e., utterances of the God).  The God spoke through an inspired host.  One of the best known oracular sanctuaries was the shrine of the God Apollo, located at Delphi in central Greece, where individuals throughout the ancient world would go for answers to personal, political, and religious questions.  A priestess known as the Pythia received the questions.  She was believed to be possessed by the God when she spoke the oracle, and her reply was considered "the Word of the God."

            This situation was similar to that of the ancient prophets of Israel; the words they spoke at the Lord's behest were treated as the Words of Yahweh, the God of Israel (for example, Jeremiah 1:1-10).  Both situations are likely part of the deep historical background behind the modern appellation "Word of God" applied to the Bible.  The legendary story of the translation of the Bible into Greek clearly reinforces the idea of the Bible's inspiration: the translators who were put in separate cubicles make exactly the same translation from Hebrew into Greek without consulting the work of one another.

            The Roman state consulted the Sibylline Oracles, a collection of ancient Greek oracles, which had been gathered from women thought to be inspired by the God.  The books were brought out and consulted for guidance at times of national crisis.  Some of the books show the influence of Jewish and Christian thought.

            The need for a "word from God" in the Jewish, Christian, and ancient Roman traditions originates in the human psyche where a similar need for divine guidance was felt in facing the uncertainties of life.  The shift from the oracular utterance to the written word is likely occasioned by skepticism and the decline of oracular centers in the ancient world.  Plutarch, a priest of the God Apollo at Delphi (late first century CE), for example, has two essays on the decline of oracles.  With the loss of confidence that the Gods were continuing to speak audibly through inspired individuals, divine authority is transferred to the written collections of what had once been thought a living word from God.

            The early Christians treated the Jewish Bible like prophetic oracles that proved the truth of Christianity.  They did not use the literal sense of the statements in the Bible as word from God, but insisted that the Bible's oracles were veiled prophecies attesting to Christ (viz., Galatians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4; Romans 10:5-11): they argued that the truth of the "Christ centered nature" of the Jewish Bible was clear to anyone who read it with the eyes of faith (viz., 2 Corinthians 3:13-16, 4:3-6).  For Christians the words of the Jewish Bible in a literal sense already by the time of Paul had generally ceased to be meaningful for the Christian experience (1 Corinthians 9:9-12; Galatians 4:22-31), and hence the eventual development of a new set of holy books for Christian communities that became the authority for interpreting the old "obsolete" Jewish books.

            These three ancient religious collections constitute the traditional remains of two different religious communities, which extend from the Israelite Exodus to the writing of 2 Peter.  They reveal different social, cultural, ethical, and religious traditions covering around 1200 years.  The Jewish Bible is a library of traditional writings of the ancient Israelites containing among other things the history of the people told from a religious perspective, along with its ancient laws, prophetic literature, hymnbook, wisdom literature, etc., from the 13th century BCE to roughly 400 BCE (second temple period).  The Apocrypha consists of additional Jewish religious texts written between 300 BCE to 70 CE.  The New Testament (50 CE to early second century) contains among other things stories, personal correspondence and theological essays.

            These collections are quite diverse and clearly primitive.  How can one today recognize a valid Word of God within them?  Indeed, how would anyone know a word of God if they saw it?  The texts are written in different social contexts at different times, and thereby contain the seeds of their own irrelevancy.  To maintain relevance the ethical and religious values of each book must constantly be prioritized and re-interpreted for every new generation.  However, some instructions in the books are clearly not the words of an ethical God (for example, Deut 17:2-5; 21:18-21; 1 Tim 2:8-15).  If there was once a justification for such advice, no justification can be offered for such practices in modern society.  In short, the Bible is out-of-date as a book for faith and practice—at least in part.

 

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

What Distinguishes the Bible from other Collections of Holy Writ?

The term "Holy Writ" refers to Scriptures used by a religious community.  The term is figurative and claims a special religious authority for the Scriptures.  Any collection so designated would be considered authoritative for faith and practice by the community using the collection.  Any collection of literature purporting to give the reader clarity of insight into the divine will and/or that serves as a guide for life in this world or for a world to come is Holy Writ.  The only thing distinguishing the Bible from other collections of "Holy Writ" is its content, but not the claim that it is exclusive.  Each collection is touted as an exclusive authority from God, or at least its adherents think so.

            Authoritative religious texts are often supported by claims of special origin.  For example, the Bible is the Word of God because it is thought to be inspired (2 Timothy 3:15-16).  The Book of Mormon, the sacred Scripture of the Latter Day Saints, was written on golden tablets, and their hidden location was revealed to Joseph Smith by the angel Moroni.  The Jewish Torah is written by God himself and given to Moses (Deuteronomy 9:9-10; 10:1-5), or it came from God to Moses through the agency of angels (Galatians 3:19; Acts 7:38; Hebrews 2:2; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 15.5.3)

            In the contemporary world a number of Holy Scriptures are imbued with the same authority as the Bible.  A few of those collections that currently compete with the Bible are the Rig-Veda (Hindu), the Avesta (Zoroastrianism), the Qu'ran (Islam), Tao Te Ching (Taoism), Tripitakas (Buddhism).

            The existence of multiple sets of Scripture claimed as exclusive religious authority does not necessarily disprove the claim that "my Scripture is true but others are not," since that claim only represents "my" opinion.  Multiple sets of authoritative Holy Scripture, however, do raise theoretical questions about one's own religion, in light of the fact that others claim the same exclusive authority for their Scripture.

1. Multiple sets of Holy Scripture refute the claim of uniqueness for any one set.  Although each set may be unique in content, no test exists to demonstrate that its content is "revealed truth." True, some sets of Holy Scripture may be more ethical, or more historical, or more rational, or more ancient than is the case with others, which by comparison may seem more harsh or unreasonable in their religious instruction.  These features, however, are not measuring the mysterious, innate, but ultimately vaporous, quality "sacred revelation," claimed somehow to reside in all Holy Writings.  In other words content alone is not what transforms narrative into revealed truth.
2. Multiple sets of Holy Scripture raise the question of the "there-ness" of all Gods.  Gods are not "mortal beings" like humans, and do not exist in space and time.  Gods are immortal/eternal we claim; they are not limited by time and do not exist in space.  Nevertheless we think of them as "there" somewhere, but do not define "there" as a place within the physical universe, but "there" as a "spiritual" dimension apart from the physical universe.  Competing sets of Holy Scripture challenge the "there-ness" of any God in the following way: If the innate essence of revelation or holiness claimed for any set of Holy Writings cannot be quantified or identified in its particulars, but is merely due to individual or group opinion, then God becomes an unnecessary postulate.  Gods may be "there," but our Scriptures are not due to them.
3. Multiple sets of Holy Scripture argue against the idea that one God is responsible for the multiple sets of Holy Scripture with their contradictory revelations.  The exclusive claims made for each set renders that idea impossible, as is suggested by the difficulty later Gentile Jesus followers had with the Jewish Scriptures.  They inherited the Jewish Scriptures as divinely inspired (2 Timothy 3:15-16), but the church held a different faith than that of the Israelites and the later Jews.  They resolved the disconnect between the old faiths and the new faith by prophetic interpretation of the Old Testament, which allowed them to disregard its literal understanding in favor of a figurative understanding.  Thus they were able to claim the revelation of one God behind what they saw as an outdated Old Testament and their new books of faith.  Not all embraced that solution, however, and Marcion, for example, rejected the Old Testament as Scripture.  Many critical scholars have long recognized that the adoption of the Jewish Scriptures as part of a Christian canon is an artifice.  Hence, multiple sets of Holy Scripture imply multiple Gods.
4. One's affirmation of the religious truth of any set of Holy Scripture is generally due to geographical happenstance, and cultural conditioning.  Had I been reared in Greek culture rather than the Bible belt, I would probably have been baptized Greek Orthodox, and my Scriptures would have been a modern Greek translation of the ancient Greek Septuagint (which is different from the Hebrew).  Had I been reared in ancient Persia, I would no doubt have been Zoroastrian and the Avesta my Holy Scriptures.  Had I been born in Cairo, I would surely have been Muslim and the Koran my Holy Scriptures.  In the absence of any critical thinking skills I would have held to the truth of each of those Scriptures as avowedly as I affirmed the Bible in my youth.  In short, our belief in the inspiration and authority of any set of Scriptures is the result of cultural conditioning and what we are taught.

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

 

(This ends the short series on the Bible as the Word of God)

Have you ever Doubted your Faith?

Someone asked me recently: have you ever doubted your faith? The question itself is interesting as a question. For one reason, it seems to be lacking a prepositional phrase specifying the object of faith. For example, have you ever doubted your faith in God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or the Bible? Or perhaps the questioner intended that the word "faith" in the question evoke the entire spectrum of my religious beliefs. Or perhaps the question is more secular and the questioner was asking whether I have ever doubted faith in friends, family, or country, and in this secular form it has the general thrust of have I ever doubted the confidence I placed in something that I believe to be certain, like gravity, for example. If all these observations are possibilities, then I must refine the question and pick the subject that is most interesting to me.

Here is the question I choose to address: have I ever doubted aspects of my personal religious faith? The short answer is yes, and I suspect that every one of us has moments of doubt about aspects of religious belief. At least I hope so. From my perspective doubting something you think is certain is a positive ability, not a liability. Doubt is a warning mechanism of the mind that can lead to a correction of misplaced confidence.

Like everyone, my personal religious faith has never been static. It began with the child's prayer I was taught, "now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." But through the years it has become more sophisticated, logical, and rational with education, as my understanding of life and my place in the cosmos evolved. My faith began with what I was taught in a Southern Baptist Sunday School in the Mississippi Delta of the 40s and 50s. Hence, it was traditional and conservative. Since childhood, however, my faith has been a thing in process, shedding childish ideas and developing in, what I regard as more mature and philosophical ways. There is a statement attributed to the Apostle Paul (that he likely did not compose), which best characterizes the development and remaindering of the faith of my childhood: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways" (1 Cor 13:11 NRSV). Doubt has played a major role in developing and remaindering my religious faith. A major premise for me has been the following: faith may not require me to believe something I find to be patently false or impossible given the world as I experience it.

Briefly here are three examples of where this process has brought me. God, if God there be, is spirit and does not exist in the sense that we normally use the word "exist." As spirit, God is not an entity that occupies space and time, as we human beings do. God, as understood by human beings, appears to be an invention of the human mind, whose character and nature change with the confessions of each religious group and individual. God does not correspond exactly to any of the many ideations of the human mind that claim to describe God. And if God does correspond exactly to one of these ideations, how could we tell? The Jewish and Christian Bibles present at least three different concepts of God. Thus, God, if God there be, is shrouded in mystery. There can be no direct knowledge of God. We learn about God from what others tell us, from the study of religions, and from those who claim to have experienced God, but all these sources offer us radically conflicting opinions.¹

Whatever else he may have been, Jesus was certainly regarded as a Judean sage, thaumaturge, and healer, or at least the author of the earliest canonical Gospel, Mark, regarded him as such, and those features are reproduced in the other three canonical gospels. His popularity with the masses and laxity in following the traditions of the elders ran him afoul of the Judean religious leaders. He was arrested, found guilty of blasphemy, and eventually crucified for political reasons by Roman authority. The early followers of Jesus, however, believed him to be much more, and used grandiose titles to describe him: God (John 20:28), son of God, Lord, the Anointed of the Lord (Christ), son of David, King of Israel. These honors are not verifiable by naked eye but rather are verified only through the eyes of faith. These days I prefer to think of Jesus as my brother in faith.

In Acts and Hebrews, Jesus is portrayed as a pioneer (archēgos), perfected through his own sufferings and his suffering qualified him to lead the way to glory for many other sons of God (Heb 2:10; 12:2). In this way Jesus, the Judean sage, became the firstborn among many brothers (Rom 8:29). My view of Jesus may make me appear as an apostate or certainly a heretic (they are not the same thing²), since it by-passes divinity for humanity as a classification for Jesus. There were various views about the nature of Jesus in antiquity, and it depended on whom you asked as to whether Jesus was divine. People holding a view different than the so-called orthodox view must nevertheless be classified as being in the stream of Christian history.³ Whatever group was dominant became the judge of what was orthodox.

In church I was never taught data about the Bible except for the most obvious information. Generally, I was taught to regard the Bible as "God-breathed"⁴ and to pattern my life on its precepts. My views have changed. I no longer think of the Bible as a "Holy Book" but as a collection of texts that reflect the evolution of the faith of two religious communities, Jewish and Christian. There are currently three versions of the Bible: the Jewish Bible, the Protestant Bible, and the Catholic Bible. Their contents are not the same. The Protestant Bible with which I grew up uses the Jewish Bible, which it regards as Old covenant books; to these texts were added certain new-covenant writings, twenty-seven other texts (the New Testament), which were assembled as a collection by the fourth century common era and added to the Jewish Bible. By the fourth century followers of Jesus regarded all these books in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek as in some sense "inspired" by God. Modern Christians transfer that high value to its translation into modern languages, forgetting that no translation is an exact reproduction of the original.

I have only touched the surface of my view of the Bible today as compared to where I began. My hasty summary nevertheless shows that if the Bible is "inspired" by God (a view that cannot be proven), it is also to be regarded as a human product. Human beings collected and canonized the writings, and text critics established what they regard as the original wording of the texts and they still debate what words should appear as the original wording.⁵

I have learned to live with the evident lack of certainty in matters of religious faith. The major difficulty with religion is that too many are absolutely certain that their religious faith is the true faith.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹C. W. Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2019), 168-70 and in particular: "Out of the Enchanted Forest. Christian Faith in an Age of Reason" pages 13-24 in When Faith Meets Reason (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2008).

²Hedrick, "How do I Describe Myself," Wry Thoughts about Religion, Friday, February 15, 2019: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2019/02/how-do-i-describe-myself.html.

³Hedrick, "Is Belief in the Divinity of Jesus Essential to Being Christian," Unmasking Biblical Faiths, 221-233.

⁴But this could only refer to the Jewish Scriptures in Greek (the Septuagint) for the New Testament had not yet been collected and given the status of "inspired Scripture."

⁵Hedrick, Unmasking Biblical Faiths, 87-102.